AKB48 imouto group NMB48 has courted fan ire after it was discovered that a sign in the background of a backstage shot of the group revealed they were throwing all the gifts their adoring fans gave them straight into the trash as a matter of course.

After buying hundreds of CDs in order to get a handshaking event ticket, many fans bring gifts for the girls to the events, which are graciously accepted.

The group does however publish detailed regulations about what will be accepted, with prohibited gifts including animals, foodstuffs, electronics, data storage media of all kinds, cash and coupons, cosmetics, drugs, explosives, and – of course – underwear.

What actually happened to the gifts may not have weighed too heavily on the minds of the kind of people to buy 100 copies of the same CD, but the mystery was in any case solved by a chance glimpse of signage in the back of a recent group photo.

Why they were doing this is perhaps best not dwelt upon, but fans examined the photo in forensic detail and soon deciphered the writing on a handwritten sign in the background:

In translation (in Japanese it reads “プレゼントは11/23処分します 置いてある物は各自で処理してください”):

Presents to be disposed of on the 23rd. Please deal with anything left over individually.

Amongst fans perhaps expecting the girls to sleep with their creepy gifts by their beds, the revelation that they will soon be consigned to a landfill will likely not be taken well:

“Harsh!”

“Poor fans…”

“If you are just going to bin it all, don’t accept it in the first place!”

“How did he spot this!”

“If it’s not money, it’s garbage!”

“Difficult issue. If they really did use any of it they would only encourage more.”

“Looking at the list, what exactly can you give them anyway?”

“Money?”

“That’s NG according to the list!”

“I’m sure this sign is just for what is left over after they have taken out what they want!”

“The fan letters go straight into the shredder too I guess.”

“Definitely throw away any food your fans give you!”

“I bet they did get some weird stuff sent them, so it seems a given they’d do this.”

“Expect cameras and recorders in those soft toys.”

“Their fans are a bunch of perverted maniacs so there is no telling how those presents have been interfered with.”

“I appreciate they are not wise to eat any of their gifts, but some of that stuff is expensive and can at least be resold.”

“It seems the correct decision by their management.”

“Warning: Please sort your gifts into the following categories: plastic articles, glass and other incombustibles, paper, articles including batteries, and miscellaneous combustible materials.”

This is why Johnny’s band boys never accept any gifts in the first place. If you don’t accept ANYTHING, then no one can find out that you’re, say, keeping the good stuff and throwing away underwear or dildos or whatthehellever.

I can’t speak for NMB48, but there is plenty of photo evidence that gifts from AKB48 fans are kept by the members who receive them. Hell, a necklace a friend of mine gave to a member showed up in a blog photo of hers a few weeks later.

I imagine that this sign is related to the prohibited goods, birthday decorations etc (every member has a fan-made birthday committee who organises floral arrangements for her birthday, which the girl always poses with in photos).

I have to agree with some of those comments. Considering the creeper nature of most of the fans that would send gifts to teenage girls, throwing them out is just common sense.

There’s also the fact that these kinds of fans will see an idol’s acceptance of a present as an acceptance of that fan’s feelings. Thus leading these creepers into believing they have any claim to the idol’s private life.

Actually, these kinds of gifts aren’t quite as bad as the more common kind, when there is an expectation to procure something to give away. In such cases the objects picked may still be unwanted by their recipients, and are made harder to obtain to those that really need them. The guesswork is a waste of time as well.

And the fans all know that avoiding reciprocity issues is easy, all it takes is to think of the gifts as bait, tribute or hand-me-downs. So they don’t have to hold back.

The girls don’t throw the gifts away, their management does. Even at these events you don’t hand over a gift to a girl of your choice, their are staff that take the gifts and check them out before handing them to the intended person.

“The group does however publish detailed regulations about what will be accepted, with prohibited gifts including animals, foodstuffs, electronics, data storage media of all kinds, cash and coupons, cosmetics, drugs, explosives, and – of course – underwear.”

I’m not sure how long you’ve been around, but he posts made up shit like that all the time and people eat it up. Doubt he really gives a fuck either way, because he’s probably making good cash from ad revenue.

Eh maybe.. what kind of people would they be, as a business of which the goal is the same as every other company (making money), if they didn’t take advantage of this? If anything, I’d do the same as them. If the ones on the other hand are stupid enough to let themselves be exploited to such extreme ends, too bad for them.

Plus they probably get a lot of it. What are they supposed to do, make a shrine for it? Also the one dude who commented saying they shouldn’t accept it in the first place, that would only cause a scene.

Oh both fans and the girls are equally mean.
I remember a case where the otakus just throws away merchandices just to get whatever that came with it.
And a case where a recent CD suddenly got into the bargain bin shortly after release.

How is writing visible in one of their own official photos a fabrication? What you chose to make of that sign is open to interpretation, and the interpretations presented in the article are a representative selection – most if not all of them were not favourable.

Most of our other AKB48 coverage is based on TV or newspaper coverage, or the reaction to their own official marketing. There are no “outright fabrications” (and when we did cover news with an element of fabrication, you’ll note we clearly identified it as such as part of the narrative), and we always present online opinions as such. In my opinion they are no more or less reliable than the uncertain allegiances of mass media commentators in any case, but that is another matter.

I just offered evidence demonstrating the Weekly Jitsuwa is in no way comparable to the National Enquirer… There is no direct US equivalent, but it is more akin to Playboy.
You’ve chosen to ignore this.

The issues surrounding multiple CD purchases have been widely covered by the Japanese media for some time, and in that case the photographs were widely circulated and controversial. We presented this controversy. You also ignore the evidence surrounding the mass oversupply of used CDs.

No less than NHK aired a special on the controversy just after the election in question – a transcript describes them moaning about the flood of used CDs amongst other things.

Individuals who buy vast numbers of CDs have been widely covered by the Japanese media on a great many occasions – if they are all fabrications, then they are those of the Japanese media.

This is obviously not an AKB48 fan site so you’ll have to forgive the lack of non-scandalous general AKB48 coverage – visitors are predominately not going to be interested in such coverage, and we must respond to this by not providing it.

The site is intended to be provocative as you correctly identify, but it does not achieve this at the expense of factual accuracy as you seem so keen to assert.

@artefact Not the same anon but really, artefact? It’s pretty clear that most of the AKB stories you post are outright fabrications or stories you picked up off of 2ch with no real source other than some anonymous Japanese man on the internet.

Semen-handshake was from weekly jitsuwa…which is no better than the National Enquirer, the publication that tells everyone about wolf boy or bat girl every couple years.

Throw-away CDs: I know you’re a smart guy. You’ve made a successful site by baiting cynical otaku. You knew those weren’t AKB CDs but you posted the story saying they were anyways because you know AKB criticism gets hits and click throughs on your porn ads.

“Guy buys thousands of CDs for handshake tickets”: If you would have seen this story posted elsewhere it was revealed that the man was actually a reseller and the tickets stacked up in the picture were an external bonus. He takes pictures like that fairly often.

The source on the “semen handshake” story was the Weekly Jitsuwa (which was linked directly in the original story, so claims of it being fake or made up by us are rather desperate), a weekly gossip magazine of some standing.

Some of what is published here may be presented on a strictly “as is” basis as with any similar coverage of Internet controversy, lurid scandals or the like, but we certainly do not present falsehoods as fact – it would be trivial to expose such stories as fabrications were they such, yet strangely the best critics under the circumstances can manage is a stream of anonymous attacks on our credibility.

If you think there are never any lies on this site just look critically at your average ‘WOMEN ARE EVIL’ article thats posted up regularly. Hell, the last one said ‘most women think’ and then went on to reveal something that one single woman said.

the group does however publish detailed regulations about what will be accepted, with prohibited gifts including animals, foodstuffs, electronics, data storage media of all kinds, cash and coupons, cosmetics, drugs, explosives, and – of course – underwear.